The Dark Star - Aftermath Pt. 09

She now knows how they felt, the victims, she can now begin to imagine their thought process. She's not scared though. She's far from scared she's moved beyond intrigue, moving towards anticipation, arousal, she craves his touch as she raises her head as best, she can from the leather cushioned seat. Her desire has never been so great, she needs him.

"What do they even call this?" She asks her voice lowered to a whisper as he moves around her left-hand side.

"Head forward," he instructs in response, ignoring her request.

As she raises her head Callaghan takes a deep breath as his right hand passes over her face. Moments later even the dim light of the room is lost as he wraps tightly the blindfold around her head. Heart now pounding with the anticipation of the moment, her senses immediately dialled up as gently she bites her lip on hearing him back away. She rests her head back against the seat, consumed by the enforced darkness.

The sound of his feet on the dusty uneven floor, to which the seat on which she's strapped is bolted down to, seem to scratch and echo through both her mind and the room.

His hands on her inner thighs push the hem of her short tight dress up over her hips with ease, his hands rip open the gusset of her fishnet tights. The slightest of breezes that plays over her exposed body causes a shiver of anticipation.

Hearing him unbuckle his belt and unzip his fly she stirs pressing her hips forward as best she can given her restraint.

She feels him.

Feels him roughly take her.

He fills her.

She cries out in ecstasy.

***********

Lay there held to the seat I feel her contract around me.

I feel the walls of her increasingly moist warmth tighten around me as I thrust repeatedly deeper and deeper into her prone body.

Her wrists pull at their cuffed restraint her head falls to the left as she breathlessly accepts me.

Accepts the control I exert over her body.

"Fuck Logan ...oh Fuck Logan," she utters my real name breathlessly as my hips roll back and forth my hands gripping tightly over the bunched dress orotund her waist.

Concentrating hard I keep my composure as I use her for my own pleasure alongside of hers.

Glancing to my left at her legs held there by the stirrups, clad in fishnet leading to those boots.

Turning my attention back to her but I don't even appreciate Rose Callaghan. As I use her, I think of the others I've fucked like this Chloe the first willing participant, Song a little less willing, Lyndsey Phillips, Mica then Sophie McAllister prior to her sister, Sarah, all of them used in the device in the bowels of The Mills. I dwell on Laura Mancini's reluctance at the Docks, then how Jamie had submitted to my hand here at the club and I think of Hetti strapped down while the fuck machine sat in the corner of the room had taken my place, brutally fucking the lithe tattooed teen.

Watching Callaghan writhing in the restraint before me I feel her tension, I feel her close to release. As I fuck her in this most brutal of positions as she submits to me, I goad her body, draw sensations the likes of which she could never have imagined months previous I'm sure.

In any other circumstances Rose Callaghan would be the perfect replacement, the perfect little submissive for my desire my needs. An equal to many who I've tested to fill the vacant role.

As I contemplate this, I'm only thinking of one person though, the one person I crave to hold in the grip of device the one person none of them have come close to substituting for.

I think of Ari.

Think of the young blonde as I fuck Callaghan harder and faster.

"Fuck ...oh fuck ... that's ... that's..." she begs.

Hearing Ari's voice as I fuck her, feeling her body lock out and press down on me as my hips jack hammer, I fuck her with abandon as she climaxes, feeling the wet warmth spill from her as I grip her hips while I fuck her, I close my eyes only concentrating on the contorted face of Arabella in my mind's eye.

I lock out my own body savouring the moment, my body so tense before I finally release.

I cum hard deep inside of her as she cranes her neck back and accepts me in the final throes of her own climax. I cum so hard I feel thick blasts of ejaculate seep from me into the Detective as her own voice strangulates against a deep exhale of ecstatic release.

Reaching my left hand up sliding it around her throat she brings her blindfolded head forward slightly to meet my grip.

Her earlier unanswered question flashes through my mind.

"You asked what they call this" I offer breathlessly.

She nods into my hand which I squeeze gently around her slender neck.

"They call this the breeder."

**********

Rose Callaghan lay strapped to the device.

His words echo in her ears.

"The Breeder."

Breathless she lays there held in the restraints, the dress she barely wears now clings to her body with sweat.

His hand crudely pushes up the blindfold, it takes time for her eyes to adjust even in the dim light of the room. She focusses on him, stood topless before her, still buried deep within her.

Rose Callaghan's body trembles with the passing convulsions of the heavy climax he'd induced. A climax the likes of which she'd never experienced. What should have felt so wrong feeling so right, so exciting, so intense. Not just the circumstance, but him.

Logan Hughes. She knew as little about him now as she had ever done but she was captivated enthralled, he held her mind as metaphorically as he currently held her body. She could see beyond his darkness.

His assertion that everything was going to work out, his strong belief that the plan she knew he had pulled her into would play out. She couldn't question it herself couldn't see a scenario that wouldn't see her basking in the glory of solving near single handedly the investigation that would define her career.

She felt him push away, let out a groan as he slipped from her. Suddenly consciously aware once again of the sound of the heavy base beat from the club above.

He flashes her that grin, that grin.

"You seem disappointed?"

"I could never be," she uttered realising how dry her throat was.

That grin spread as he began to unbuckle the strap that tightly gripped her right thigh.

"Any other devices in my dungeon that fascinate you?"

**********

From the doorway that overlooks the back alley I watch the taxi disappear as it turns left on to Main Street.

Overhead the sky is jet black and surprisingly for the midst of the City it affords a glimpse of a handful of stars that speckled the darkness.

The temperature well below freezing the condensation of the cold night and the warm air being expelled mixes with the last deep drag of my cigarette.

Stepping in I close the door on myself. I walk into the main room. The club now empty spare for two bar staff who appear more intent on chatting than performing end of shift duties.

"There's no fucking overtime payments." I state to neither of them in particular. Thinking that perhaps the club doesn't run itself so well without hands on guidance. "In fact, ... get your coats and fuck off."

Both turn their heads to me, a floppy haired twenty something boy and a tall slender blonde with dip dye red highlights, who is on second glance very attractive. In different circumstance and at a different time of my life I ponder briefly, briefly imaging how she'd look bent double in the Pillory as Rose Callaghan had just been for two hours. Their expressions are a mix of shock, coupled with a lack of comprehension of my outburst.

"I said fuck off" I sneer, aiming my comment more towards the male of the pair. Neither of them utters a word as they hurriedly back away through the empty club, they don't even dare to look back at me.

I step behind the bar and take a bottle of Brandy and a cut glass tumbler and set them on top of the bar. My phone vibrates in my pocket.

A handful of diligent messages from Jamie, no doubt checking up on the place, accompany the new message from Callaghan. A simple two-word message

SENDER; Callaghan Mobile; Good Night x

I hover over a reply then decide to close the message.

My eye instantly on the most recent message from an unknown number.

SENDER; UNKNOWN: Looking forward to being shown the ropes ...and the chains. Bethany btw

I type my response quickly without hesitation.

SENDER; My iPhone: Bethany btw. How about tomorrow night?

Saving her name in my contacts I close the message only then realising the ambiguity as it's technically now the early hours of Saturday and she'll unlikely see the message until the morning. I park such concerns from my tired mind. With the phone out I text again to another a number listed as AWS

SENDER; My iPhone: All set? Sunday. Meet me at the DS

Setting down the phone I pour a generous measure of neat Brandy and take a look around the place. A hundred or more memories flash before my eyes. Sights, sounds, faces, voices, good memories, bad memories.

Raising my glass with a nod to nothing but the stale warm air around me.

"Times nearly up old girl... but I'm leaving you in good hands."

Chapter Three; The Last Of Her Kind

Sat at the mahogany desk in front of the laptop I double check that I've logged out of the online bank account and close down the window. All funds from the Dark Star company account transferred into my private account with immediate effect.

My eye back on the Facebook profile page on the window that remains on screen. It's little wonder I recognised her. It hadn't taken much amateur Sherlocking to discover her. Her profile picture looks to be from a little while ago but it's unmistakably her. The profile picture shared with a much more recognisable face side by side the similarities are apparent by no means are they twins, all the same even without her surname they are unmistakably related. Enlarging the profile picture to full screen I scroll through a number of recent profile pictures. She's a pretty girl, in all the pictures she's a little demurer in her choice of clothing than in the black ensemble she'd been wearing last night.

I stop on another picture of her and the familiar face, both girls stood in cut off denim shorts and vest tops, both sport rubber wellington boots in lurid colours. Behind them the rows of tents indicate their presence at a summer festival of some description. My mind lingers on a fantasy of the two of them together. A fantasy that can never be.

I zoom in on the photo, concentrating not on the hosts photo but on the other girl in the photo. Chloe Macready.

The door to the office unlocks and swings open; Jamie steps in wearing a figure hugging strapless black dress and little black spike heeled ankle boots. I close down the lid of the lap top a little too hurriedly. Like a teenager whose Mother has just walked in.

"Delete the History as well don't forget," she smirks as I look up at her.

"I don't need porn to get myself off..." I say standing and taking my jacket from the back of the chair, slipping it over my fitted black shirt. "...As well you are aware."

"Don't I just know," she semi mocks but I know what a willing little participant she can be in fulfilling my desires.

"Busy down there?"

"It's a Saturday Lo..." she raises an eyebrow sarcastically in my direction "which means two things... yes we are fucking and busy... and invariably there's a young dumb blonde asking for you at the bar."

"Really?" I mock my surprise at what she suggests.

"Your usual type," Jamie just mocks "So I'm

guessing I won't be seeing too much in the way of assistance from you tonight."

"I may have plans."

"The private rooms are booked up," Jamie states as she brushes past me to the filing cabinets behind the desk, filling my nostrils with the deep almost dark scent of her perfume.

"My private room isn't," I don't look back as I confirm to her where I'll be.

"The poor bitch," Jamie can't help but comment as I head from the office.

I head down the stairs to the ground floor, opening the latched door I walk out into the club, possibly for the last time, seeing it at full capacity I take a moment to breathe it all in, to experience it. The living breathing being that I've always thought it to be. As I do I catch the eye of a dark-haired girl sipping a dark drink through a straw as she stands next to a well-built black guy. She returns my smile.

The interaction brief and passing my mind is on one person only tonight. Too much of a coincidence for her to be here. Too soon. Too close to the body being discovered. I'd always believed I'd held Chloe's confidence in everything we'd done together. Every hustle, every crime, everything we'd ever achieved. I truly trusted her, despite the imbalances of her persona, the mood swings that made even the closest scrutiny impossible. I'd micromanaged her tendency to attempt to fly solo to take matters into her own hands which had invariably in the past made situations as inexplicable as they had been unpredictable. I'd had no clue whatsoever about what had led to her dragging Alison Matthews and Leah Davies back into my life, names from a past Chloe should have known nothing about; dragged back into my life ultimately at their demise. That had never been part of the plan. Not that there had ever been a clearly defined plan to our debauched madness. I realised therefore a long time ago h the at try as I might Chloe was never truly manageable, she never had been, she never would be.

Chloe had to my mind never been my protege. She had been a victim, the first victim maybe and as a result she'd set off down the route towards the unhinged sociopath that she had ultimately become, all starred thanks to the humiliation at my hand on the stage away to my left. Her life had spiralled from the moment she'd met me, the young Psychology student had never been the same again. Living in the shadows with me I'd given her a freedom of sorts, but she remained at my beck and call. I hadn't necessarily fed her blood lust, or her liberated highly sexual lifestyle. I had used her though, used her to ensnare Jack amongst countless others. Acts she'd never knowingly questioned, indeed she always acted of her own free will and often under very little duress.

Approaching the eerily familiar blonde at the bar questions run through my own mind. Questioning why she's here, what she wants, or what she believes she wants from being here?

I stop second guessing. I have my plan and I will discover the truth. Carefully mentally reheated in my head I know exactly how I will discover the truth. It may not be what the young expects from the night.

Reaching out my right hand I tap her left shoulder gently. I feel her tension.

"Evening," she turns to face me with an innocent enough demure smile. Clutching what appears to be a Vodka, lime, and soda.

"Evening Bethany," I smile back. "I have plenty to show you."

"I'm looking forward to discovering," her tone suggesting she was confident, but her slight nervous disposition and the little bite of her bottom lip suggests otherwise.

"Confident?" I raise an eyebrow.

"I'm sure I can handle," she states before taking a long sip of the drink through the thin black straw sat amongst the ice cubes.

"I'm sure you will... I'm sure you will."

Her eyes widen a little a little at my deadpan reply.

I look her up and down, another little black dress, the same pair of black knee boots over patterned stockings.

She has no idea.

She's going to be last Dark Star Girl.

She's going to suffer.

**********

A little after midnight Jamie Pearce entered the main office.

She was anxious, she had no idea as to why she was so anxious, but something didn't feel right. There was an atmosphere a sense of foreboding that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

She'd tried hard in the last hour to shake that sense of foreboding. Convincing herself that the couple of lines of cocaine she'd shared with a companion earlier in the evening had set her on edge.

Something wasn't right though, sitting heavily down into the leather swivel chair of the desk she tapped her fingers agitatedly upon the mahogany wooden surface. The background beat of the club's music nowhere near matching the frantic rhythm that her fingers played out.

Furiously her eyes scanned the two monitors sat on the desk. Scanning every CCTV image as though clues would conveniently be being captured on the screen from one of the twenty or so high-definition cameras.

Nothing. The club was heaving, the usual shit that came with any busy Saturday night. Lairy males looking for drink, drugs, and trouble, a select number of females looking for the same vices. The paid escorts mingled with the punters catering for the tastes of the more discerning or perverted. The dance floor heaved. On camera she caught sight of a dark-haired girl being led into one of the fire escape corridors, watching as her male absconder presses her face first against a wall in the dimly lit corridor. Legs kicked apart her skirt slipped around her waist unawares their tryst was playing out on a monitor upstairs on the other side of the club.

"Security..." Jamie stated into the mic attached to her earpiece.

"Go Ahead..." a familiar Eastern European accent stated in almost immediate response.

"Fire Exit Corridor... can you go and disrupt Romeo and Juliette."

"Will do."

"Let them know there's a Premier Inn around the corner if they're looking for a cheap bunk up."

Her eyes scanned the remaining images on the screen. Logan wouldn't have approved he'd have turned his eye or watched what played out. Jamie was in no mood for this. Something about him had been suspicious earlier on. Something about the way he'd hurriedly shut down the Laptop that sits on the edge of the desk. His Lap Top. She should know better; she should know not to doubt the man who she'd trusted for more months and years than she cared to think of. He had told her all about his exit strategy. Correction he'd alluded to her about his exit strategy, she didn't know the full detail. She had no idea of his full plan, his time schedule. Logan Hughes had always had a knack of confiding just enough detail that he could never be accused of keeping her in the dark. She reprimanded herself as soon as she reached for the laptop, she trusted him, he trusted her.

There was no need to doubt him, there was no need to raise the screen of the laptop. The screen illuminated a black screen saver quickly displaying the password prompt. How far though could you trust a man who had previously manufactured his own death.

Her fingers tapped gently across the keypad. For all his attention to detail she'd discovered his penchant using for the same password on all his devices. Ironic given what was playing out in the bigger picture. The password being Jack Hughes birth date, in reverse.

The screen illuminated and Jamie took a deep breath her blood freezing somewhat in her veins as she stares at the image of the two girls. Two girls she instantly recognises. The first that conniving little bitch Chloe Macready.

The second the girl the same one who'd been asking for Logan at the bar only hours earlier. Clicking the small X in the top corner of the image it minimised to reveal a Facebook profile page.

A Facebook profile page for Beth Macready.

Pushing away from the desk with vitriol she scowled, eyes immediately scanning the CCTV screens once again.

She knew where he would be, he'd all but told her where he would be, it was practically futile looking to the screens. Logan Hughes would be in the one place CCTV offered him absolute immunity. The one place he could take another victim.

Jamie's stood striding from the office her heels striking heavily on the floor as she headed through the door, not even bothering to close down the laptop, not even checking the door latches and locks behind her. Heading straight down the flight of stairs into the main club. She passes at haste Dimitar her head of security escorting the couple he'd disturbed from the fire exit corridor. Entering the fire exit corridor herself she follows it running parallel with the dance floor to the second fire exit door and the external door.